Tuesday, 25 April 2017

LIVE PROJECT : COS #16

TUESDAY 25th APRIL :

As my trousers were successful, I decided to move onto my coat re-toile. Over Easter break, I made my initial toile using the pattern I made just before I went home for two weeks. Here some pictures of that toile...

I wasn't happy with the fit of the coat, as I imagined it to be more oversized and 'relaxed style', therefore when I made my pattern adjustments I just didn't quite emphasise the nature of the coat how I desired it to be. However, by making this initial toile made me realise this and it then became easier to adjust the adaptations I wanted to make.

I decided that I wanted to drop the sleeve seam, however as I do not have a side seam this became a struggle; as the arm hole is literally just a hole in the pattern piece but once seam allowance is added it disrupts the circle (see image of pattern piece below.)

To do this it what easier for me to unpick and cut up half of the initial toile as I could the physically see the new pattern pieces and digitise these into Lectra. I then also wanted a one piece sleeve instead of a two piece sleeve - and wanted the seam to be on the top of the arm so that it aligns with the shoulder seam. I widened the sleeve width as well as it seems a little tight to start with, and especially as it is a coat it needs to be bigger so the wearer can wear it with other clothing underneath (such as shirts, knitwear etc.)

I lengthened the jacket too, and made it wider so appeared more oversized. I have also re-adjusted the centre front and thus extended it so that the front flaps/lapels will be bigger in size. In addition to this i grew on a piece to the front of the jacket to act as a collar so that the lapel continues slightly around to the back of the neck. As I will have two in-seam pockets (one either side of the jacket on the diagonal seam), I created a pocket bag which I will use on my second toile when inputting the pockets to the coat.

Using Marker Manager, I created a lay plan for my pattern to be printed out but also created a lay plan for fabric so that I could see what would approximately be my efficiency.

As the efficiency is only 85% and I ideally wanted it to be higher I may adjust some of the shapes of my pattern pieces so that they slot together better; for example; I could adjust the shape of the point on the storm flap so that it sits more together when placed above the side bodice piece on the lay plan. I created a 3D toile of my coat too before printing it off as it helped me see what the adjustments would look like, but to also help me make any last minute adjustments here and there.